“From 4 am, you have to open access to Place Notre-Dame, cut power to the fountain and welcome the first exhibitors. Then, I unlock the market hall and I arrange the traffic diversion. Around 8:30 am, when all the traders are installed and after having settled some details, I start to collect the place fees. Some people are sometimes recalcitrant, and you have to be a diplomat. ” Michel Vettese is one of the two ushers attached to the social life service of Villefranche-de-Rouergue (Aveyron). The Thursday market, famous throughout the region, extends over a good part of the old country house. Each week, a millimeter mechanism is put in place.
In Périgueux, his counterpart, crossed on the Place du Coderc, opposite the covered market, officiates three mornings a week, alternating with a colleague. “The price is 2 to 3 euros per meter depending on the number of days of presence. There are also connections to electricity and water. Subscribers pay once a year ”, he explains. The collection of place rights is mostly done in cash, and relies on unwritten memory.
The market, a place that is both codified, informal and warm, Clément Dusong, town planner and bicycle specialist, frequented it for ten years as an employee of a fruit and vegetable merchant. “I was looking for a student job. One morning, in a market in Val-de-Marne, I offered help to a greengrocer, who accepted it immediately ”, he recounts. In this rough environment, “The usual rules of salary, CV and cover letter, are not useful. Speaking takes precedence over everything, on condition that you prove your motivation and capacity for work ”.
Human contact and mutual aid
Got up at 5:30 am, on site half an hour later, the employee must first unroll the tarpaulins, install the metal poles, set up the tables. “It’s very physical”, comments Mr. Dusong, and perishable goods require constant attention. “Sorting strawberries takes a long time. ” If the market officially opens at 8 a.m., “The first customers show up from 7 am, always in the same order”, he notes.
The aisles come alive around 8:30 a.m. in summer, 9:30 a.m. in winter, before peaking in traffic two hours later. The market is a village where everyone has their own habits. “I know 95% of the clients by sight, and for 25% of them, I am able to quote an anecdote about them. Some mothers buy exactly the same thing every week, to the nearest unit. “
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